https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1167-4743
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Abstract
Lithic assemblages associated with Indigenous Australian built structures are underexplored. The Hilary Creek Site 1 (HCS1) complex, western Queensland, comprising at least 16 stone-based hut structures and multiple stone arrangements, also contains a surface assemblage of thousands of flaked stone artefacts. Analysis of a sample of this assemblage provides novel insights into the technology and role of flaked stone artefacts at this site, revealing trends in production reminiscent of industries found elsewhere in arid Australia, including the highly standardised tula adze technology. The nature of the HCS1 complex, revealed through a combination of Indigenous knowledge, historical research and archaeology, facilitates exploration of theoretical models seeking to detect aspects of social learning amongst those making flaked stone artefacts. We offer social learning theory as a novel way to expand on the significance of lithic technology at this unique site – a Pitta Pitta place of teaching, learning, and youth initiation – and present new directions for theoretical modelling of flaked stone artefact variability in Australian archaeology.
Acknowledgements
We thank the Pitta Pitta Aboriginal Corporation for their support, especially Lorna Bogdanek for her assistance in organising the permissions and fieldwork and Frances Melville for her unwavering enthusiasm for our research. Lyndall Simmonds georectified the aerial imagery and prepared the site plans. We also thank the North Australian Pastoral Company (NAPCo) for permission to work on Marion Downs and Rob Jansen, the manager, for his hospitality and assistance. Thanks also to the reviewers of this paper, although the viewpoints presented remain those of the authors.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Whether all such clusters of huts can be defined as villages sensu stricto, as some have done (e.g. Pascoe Citation2014:125; Westaway et al. Citation2018, Citation2019; cf. David and Weisler Citation2006 for villages in the Torres Strait) is peripheral to the main goals of this study but is an issue of substantive importance that will be addressed elsewhere.
2 By the time of Roth’s recording, traditional Aboriginal lifeways in this region had been disrupted by pastoralism and the violent actions of the Native Mounted Police. Furthermore, Pitta Pitta people today recount that Roth rarely ventured into the bush to talk with people, preferring the Australian Hotel and Boulia racecourse (Trevina Rogers pers. comm., July 2021). This may go some way to explaining his silence regarding these distinctive features.
3 Note that median ages are given rather than age ranges, owing to their falling in a poorly refined section of the calibration curve; detailed results are provided in Wallis et al. (Citation2021:Table 1).
4 Given the paucity of stone artefacts on the surface inside the hut bases (for example, XU1 of a 1 x 1 m test-pit inside Hut 1 contained only seven artefacts, although the pit had been positioned over the densest part of the surface assemblage, compared to 74 for a similarly sized test-pit outside Hut 5; Wallis et al. Citation2017), there was not seen to be any value in positioning sample squares inside the huts themselves, as their sample sizes would have been too small for statistically meaningful comparative purposes.